Conway: Trump didn’t snub Romney due to apology refusal

Donald Trump aide Kellyanne Conway on Thursday slammed reports that Mitt Romney wasn’t tapped for secretary of State because he refused to publicly apologize for criticizing the president-elect during the campaign.

“I’ve never been in any conversation, any meeting, where somebody said that was the condition of him being secretary of State,” Conway said on “Fox and Friends.”

“If that were true, then perhaps he wouldn’t have been invited in the first place.”

{mosads}Conway said Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, was invited because Trump wanted to interview him for the position of secretary of State.

“We had many, many qualified candidates. You have to be comfortable with someone that’s going to also execute the Trump doctrine, if you will, and advance U.S. interests around the globe,” Conway said.

“So that fact that others were not chosen is really nothing against them.”

A report surfaced Wednesday that said Romney, who was critical of Trump during his presidential campaign, declined a request to publicly apologize for his comments.

During the campaign, Romney called the president-elect a “con man, a phony and a fraud.” 

Trump was reportedly willing to move past Romney’s comments and consider him for the nation’s top diplomatic job, but some of Trump’s aides were not as forgiving. Conway was publicly critical of Romney while he was under consideration for the post.

The president-elect earlier this week picked Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson for the role.

Conway on Thursday defended Trump’s decision to choose Tillerson, who has been facing scrutiny over his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“In the case of Mr. Tillerson,” she said, “you’re just dealing with what Mr. Trump has called a ‘world-class player.’ “